Caution ! Wet Painters

With June feeling more like November only the hardiest of Goodgymers showed up to face the raindrops tonight!

Awarding the Garland of Glory to Sarah for having completed 10 Goodgym Good deeds, and welcoming Isabella to the gang, our all-female dream team, zipped on their capes (rain jackets) and headed out to battle the elements, litter, and graffiti.

Our route took us straight through the city centre to the Oxford Canal, where we met Tim Wiseman, the Oxford City Council Waterways Coordinator. Tim had come prepared with paint, paintbrushes and rollers, and we set straight to work painting over graffiti.

The graffiti on Worcester College's external walls has been there for months, and is a real eyesore on the main route from the railway station to city centre and along the Oxford Canal towpath.

Rollers and paintbrushes a-go-go, it took 6 Goodgymers only half an hour to paint over the three patches of graffiti on Hythe Bridge Street and over the road on Middle Fisher Row. In future we hope to return to plant climber plants to deter more graffiti appearing.

Swapping painty fingers for gloves and bin bags, our next task was a litter pick.

Waving goodbye to Tim, and heading toward the Thames, we made light work of litter along our route. Swooping on plastic bottles, cans, takeaway containers, cigarette packets, and glass bottles we collected up 2 large bin bags of litter from our 1.5 mile run along the Thames Path, ending at Folly Bridge. Plogging (picking up litter while jogging) is pretty satisfying, but it's also extremely frustrating to see so much litter being dropped, often only yards from a bin.

Soaked to the skin by now it felt like high time to make a dash for home, and through Christchurch Meadows was the most direct route back to Cowley. Enjoying our jaunt along the Cherwell, views of Merton and Christchurch, and making kissy faces at the cows in the meadow, we were brought up short by a whole heap of litter on the riverbank. It's end of exam-time in Oxford, and it seems that there are some students who like to party by the river and then leave their booze bottles, tutus, shoes(!), and silly string behind. Feeling sorry for the one man clearing up the mess we stopped briefly to help, before dashing back over Magdalen Bridge and up the Cowley Road. Squelch Squelch Squelch.

• 3 patches of graffiti painted over.
  
• 2 bin bags of rubbish collected.
  
• 1 man helped with the post-exam clear up.
  

Thanks to Sarah for the pun!

Next week it WILL be sunny. That's quite enough rainy runs for 1 summer!